Category: Warfare

After the Battle of Bothwell Bridge, wounded Covenanters escaped in whatever direction they could. The story goes that Mary Rae found her sweeheart, Robert Lambie, lying here at the well, and stayed with him until he died. I’ve also read suggestions that she brought him here to the well after finding him on the battlefield, and that she died here with him.

A photo of Mary Rae’s well was posted on Flickr, but all I knew was that it was in Bellshill. At that time, there wasn’t much information about it, so I gave up until coming home one night I noticed Mary Rae Road. It seemed obvious that it was here, but it still wasn’t easy to find. I eventually spotted it on Google aerial view: a concrete box stuck in the middle of a housing estate with no signpost, although there is an information plaque on the concrete.

Hunting around again today, I found a poster on the Talking Scot forum reporting that there was a natural spring here when he was a child.

MARY RAE’S WELL is an interesting memento of the battle of Bothwell Brigg. It is situated a little below the farm of Boggs, near the road from Bothwell to Bellshill, a little to the north of the railway. The tradition says that beside it are interred the remains of two lovers, Mary Rae and Robin Lammie. They dwelt on the banks of the Ayr, but Robin left his home to fight in the ranks of the Covenanters. Robin fell fighting bravely, but the spirit of his unburied corpse appeared to Mary in a dream, and besought Mary to get it Christian burial. Mary at once set off, searched for and found the mangled body. With an effort she bore it from the bloody field to the side of this sparkling well. There, with her own hands, she dug a grave, and buried her betrothed. There she built a bower for herself, and there she watched by day and slept by night. There she pined away until she withered into death, and was laid by the side of her brave lad. The well was covered in by Mrs Douglas of Douglas park in 1827, who, moreover, put its waters to some service, for they are conveyed underground in pipes to her house and offices in the low grounds.